Dodger Outburst Effectively Ends Giant Quest, 16-3

For those who still thought there were three teams in the National League West championship race, the Dodgers clarified things Friday.

There are only two. And the San Francisco Giants are not one of them.

With 20 hits and a season-high 16 runs, the Dodgers pounded the Giants into uttering what sounded like concession speeches with a 16-3 victory before 45,845 at Dodger Stadium.

While the West-leading Cincinnati Reds were beating San Diego, 10-1, the Dodgers were matching them swing for swing to remain 3 1/2 games behind them with 11 games to play.

And, finally, they have to worry only about the Reds. San Francisco, which spent much of the season in second place and was chased by the Dodgers until Aug. 15, fell to 7 1/2 games behind, a near-impossible deficit.

“This is the first time all year I felt we didn’t have a chance to win it,” Giants Manager Roger Craig said. “Now, it would really have to be a miracle. We’d have to win every game, which is possible. . . . I’m still not conceding. Don’t put no headlines in the paper saying that I’m conceding.”

Terry Kennedy, the Giants’ veteran catcher, added, “If the Reds weren’t so inept, we’d have been out of this a long time ago. We have no business being there. The numbers indicate it’s still possible, but realistically you’d have to say no.”

With every pressure victory, the Dodgers are feeling they have a realistic chance to catch Cincinnati. In the first inning Friday, they saw a 5-0 Reds’ lead in the first inning in San Diego on the scoreboard, so they also scored five first-inning runs en route to their eighth victory in 10 games.

“I like our atmosphere here. We’re all so loose. . . . It’s like, there’s only one team that can lose it and that’s the Reds,” Mickey Hatcher said.

It’s easy to be loose when your No. 3 and No. 4 hitters combine to go seven for seven with five runs and three runs batted in. That was Friday’s aggregate for Kal Daniels and Eddie Murray, who were rewarded by being removed from the game early.

Both players left the clubhouse before reporters were permitted inside, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Murray, whose chase of the National League batting championship is being accompanied by the loudest chants of “Ed-die, Ed-die” since he joined the Dodgers two winters ago, had his 12th three-hit game of the season.

With three singles, including a high bouncer over third base, he increased his average to .329. That is two points behind Philadelphia’s Lenny Dykstra and six points behind Willie McGee, whose .335 average will not change because he has been traded from St. Louis to Oakland.

Murray has a .542 average during a 10-game hitting streak and a .470 average in September. He was walked twice Friday, including a rare intentional walk in the first inning.

Murray was so impressive, fans were still chanting his name when Hatcher, who replaced him in the seventh inning, came to bat in the eighth.

“I think they were chanting, ‘Where’s Ed-die? Where’s Ed-die?’ ” Hatcher said.

Daniels had his first four-hit game of the season. Lenny Harris added three hits and even Dodger starting pitcher Mike Morgan, who entered the game with five hits all season, had two hits.

“It was a big night for us,” said Morgan, who won for the first time since Aug. 15 and the second time since July 30. In eight innings, before being relieved by John Wetteland, he allowed three runs on nine hits with five strikeouts and one walk to improve to 11-14.

It can be an even bigger night tonight. The Dodgers will have a rare chance to pick up 1 1/2 games when the Reds play a doubleheader in San Diego while the Dodgers play the Giants in a single game with Dennis Cook facing the Giants’ Mike LaCoss.

“That could be a big turnaround, and everybody knows that,” Hatcher said. “I don’t know what the atmosphere is like with the Reds . . . but that could be the difference. I know all of us have been here before. We are all loose and know what is going on.

“Maybe some of the Reds have not been there before, and maybe that could be a factor. Maybe they are feeling more pressure.”

In moving 11 games above .500 for the first time this season at 81-70, the Dodgers put Giants’ pitcher Don Robinson through his worst pitching nightmare in eight years.

San Francisco scored a run in the first inning against Morgan on a double by Brett Butler, a grounder and a fly ball by Will Clark. But the Dodgers erupted in the bottom of the inning with five, and the Giants were never close in losing for the sixth time in eight games.

Robinson, allowing eight runs on nine hits in three innings, suffered his worst beating since Aug. 18, 1982, when he allowed nine San Francisco runs while pitching for Pittsburgh.

Dodger Notes

Dennis Cook will make his first start as a Dodger today, replacing Mike Hartley, who will miss his second start with a sore left side. Cook, who has allowed two runs in one inning with the Dodgers, last started on Aug. 6 for Philadelphia. He allowed Pittsburgh three runs in six innings but received no decision. In 13 starts for the Phillies, he was 5-2 with a 3.59 ERA. The decision to use Cook over Tim Crews, who allowed the Atlanta Braves one run in 5 1/3 innings in a replacement start Monday, was based on Crews’ value in the bullpen. The Dodgers feel that if Crews was available Wednesday, the Dodgers might not have blown a 4-0 lead in a 9-4 loss to San Diego. “I would have come into that game in the sixth inning,” Crews said, referring to the inning in which rookie Darren Holmes allowed four runs to absorb the loss. “And who knows what would have happened? But I have been pitching pretty well lately. I don’t mind going back to the bullpen, because I guess they decided they need me more than once every four days.”

Pat Perry said he will attend the Instructional League in Arizona after the season in hopes of proving to himself and the Dodgers that he has recovered from shoulder tendinitis. Perry has not been used since coming off the disabled list Sept. 1, which has not stopped him from warming up in the bullpen. “I’m back, but nobody knows it except me and bullpen catcher Todd Maulding,” Perry said.